so, once we've finished with the campaign I'm currently in, we're goign to be doing something interesting. My GM is going to scale up the books from shattered star (or at least the dungeons from each) and run them from level 18 to 20, and we're bringing back our rise of the runelords characters to run through it.
now that the context is out of the way, I'm looking for some advice on what exactly to do with my psychic I'm bringing along. what feats are still useful at such high level play? I already have most of the obvious gear, Ioun stones, about a million meta magic rods looted from the final boss of rise of the runelords (name omitted for possible spoilers if people care about that, his robes, but what sort of useful, and more important, fun items could be helpful? mostly I'm asking because of not knowing what feats to get, but I also have little to no experience at such high level play, so advice would be appreciated!
For reference, he's a psycedelia psychic, and generally enjoys crowd-control and debuffing, but at such high level I expect him to branch out a bit.
What were his feats?
Currently he's got empower spell, quicken, (greater) spell focus enchantment, spell focus divination, spell specialization (mind thrust 6), logical spell, extra amplification, expanded phrenic pool, improved initiative.
some of those where more useful earlier in the game, and now that he's got some cash and a bit of downtime he might do a bit of retraining to change them up a bit.
Perfect spell is probably worthy or spell perfection I forget what it's called
Greater Possession grabs you a spare set of hitpoints, a spare body to absorb the effects of failed fort saves, and if the enemy doesn't catch on, immunity to mind-affecting spells. Mind Blank on yourself and the host body.
A few high level feats worth considering: cartogramancer, hidden presence and (at 19th level) second contingency. Spell perfection on some spell you want to cast a lot is useful as CD says.
The hallucinogenic aura is going to be a problem. He'll need minions, ideally constructs immune to it.
Also for damage you're better of using Mind Thrust V than Mind Thrust VI as then you can quicken it. I made a DPS psychic the most efficient way was Mind Thrust V using phrenic amp for intensify, and empower done myself for 30D8 followed by a quickened version of the same. If you really wanna go for it carrying a rod of maximise is worth while.
Not that you need to go damaging with a psychic but if you're thinking about it.
Honestly, Meta magic rods shouldn't be a problem, I got a good deal of the loot from the final boss, and we had a large table filled with pretty powerful people, and our GM likes to rebuild fights to make them more challenging, so, extra evil and extra rich wizard had a lot of metamagic rods on him, which now belong to me. Also, does anyone have experience using the Rend body spell? It looked interesting, especially with a maximixe rod or something, but sometimes spells can look good but simply do not work out as well in actual play. I do like the look of cartogromancer, very useful looking
Rend body isn't a bad spell in terms of straight damage you're better of with Mind Thrust because of the lower level for meta purposes, but rend body does do force damage and isn't half on a save and isn't mind effecting.
It's rider effect is super f$@&ing metal which is kewl as well although getting it off is hard. It's a fortitude save and has a minimum damage requirement (although you should hit that fairly easily).
I think of rend body as a hurt and rebuff Spell and Mind Thrust as a killer which is less reliable.
Rend Body does untyped damage, not force, has a unique and terrible casting time, and if you use the PFS clarifications does do half damage on a save. Like most of that section of that book it's poorly developed/underbaked. If your GM lets you cast as a standard action and agrees it always does full damage then the higher level versions are ok.